In nursery operations, among other agricultural pursuits, the utilization of large amounts of water and fertilizer are commonplace. While the utilization of such large quantities of water and fertilizer help to produce better agricultural products, there are serious side-effects associated with using fertilizer.
Escaping water carries much of the fertilizer with it. This not only increases the amount of fertilizer that is necessary to effectively fertilize the plant, thereby increasing the costs incurred by the plant grower, but the run-off can be a dangerous pollutant and can lead to the creation of dead zones. Hundreds of the world's coastal regions have dead zones, which are oxygen-depleted areas where many forms of aquatic life cannot survive. Fertilizer run-off from land is increasing the number, size, duration and severity of dead zones across the globe. This is mainly because the use of fertilizers in agriculture is increasing.
Nitrogen, which, makes up about 78% of the Earth's atmosphere, is an inert gas but it has more reactive forms. One of these comes from making fertilizers, using the Haber-Bosch process, which converts nitrogen gas into ammonia. Although some of the fertilizer used on fields is taken up by plants and then by the animals that eat them, most of it accumulates in the soil before being washed to the coast and eventually to the ocean.